Pen and View: 5 Seconds: Groovin' Downtown

Week three of my "5 Second" series and this family still makes me smile. I have to say, as I was posting these I had to shake my head with wonder at the beautiful weather we had two weeks ago because as I type it is dreary, rainy, cold, and miserable outside. Seriously? This is MAY people! I live in the sunny state! (Deep breath)

Moving on. These collection of "5 Seconds" were taken during our exploration of downtown. Lots of fun was had by all as you will see...

Java and dinner anyone?

After reading the "specials" menu the kids decided to actually take a peek into the restaurant's big sliding windows. I quickly popped inside and snapped them looking in.

So, one of the things our little city boasts about is their mushroom farms located on the outskirts of town. They hold a yearly Mushroom Mardis Gras festival (coming up this weekend!) and people travel near and far to eat mushroom this and mushroom that. It's crazy. I'd like a one-on-one chat with the person who decided the mushroom would be a good thing to have our city claim as their "thing", because the mushroom, in my humble opinion, is not really that exciting. And have you ever smelled a mushroom harvest? It's akin to driving through a massive cow pasture. The sulfuric gasses that are released when mushrooms are harvested create quite the gag reflex. There are certain areas of town that are caught in the downwind currents of the farms and I pretty much avoid them. I once met the gal whose family owned one of the farms. She said her perpetual worry was that the smell was permanently soaked into her clothing and that she constantly smelled of mushroom stink. Ya think?

A couple of years ago some artists got together and decided to create some mushroom sculptures for our downtown area. (Because we need to milk the mushroom thing for all it's worth.) There are now quite a few that dot our downtown landscape and the kids love to climb on them.

Here is the "oceanic" mushroom...

And the "vroom vroom" mushroom complete with exhaust pipes...

And the "Wizard of Oz" mushroom...

(I know you're totally jealous now. You're wishing your town had a mushroom farm or two.)

We then headed over to the bike mural--which was kind of cool because Dad works for one of the biggest bike companies and is himself a bike engineer. He sits at his desk and creates new bikes for a really popular, hip bike company and owns over twenty bikes himself.

(At least he thinks it's twenty, he lost count! And his wife wouldn't let him bring them all over from their homeland of Germany. I don't blame her. Garage space is prime real estate in my book.)